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Liquid crystals of biomolecules occur ubiquitously in biological systems, and to study the physiological mechanism of acupuncture, methods involving the detection of liquid crystals have been introduced. It is revealed that liquid crystals appear in the acupuncture point Zusanli 15 min after the appropriate stimulus in the acupuncture point Jiexi, which is located on the same meridian with Zusanli according to the Meridian Theory of Chinese Medicine, whereas liquid crystals are rarely observed in the points beside the Zusanli in the same condition. Subsequent studies on the composition of the liquid crystals detected, using energy dispersive X-ray analysis and histochemical analysis, suggest that the liquid crystals consist of proteins and perhaps phospholipids. The results show that these biomolecules, which are accumulated in the extracellular fluid of the acupuncture point, may function in the acupuncture effects, and moreover that liquid crystal detection can serve as a simple method to start studies of such complicated physiological phenomena.
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Ma et al. (2001) studied this question.
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